So I'm painting a Skaven army now.

Thank Heaven for clean hobby spaces!  Spent most of my free time today cleaning up and tidying away half-finished projects and empty glue pottles and brushes too cruddy for the "cruddy brush" category, now I can really kick back and spread my projects far and wide, and let my creativity run riot.  Well, not really.

 

Before you ask-- the green thing has been super-glued to the bench for years and no, it isn't LEGO, it's a cheap ripoff.
While the bench was tidy, I thought it'd be a good time to showcase my audiobook collection.

OKAY-- time to calm down...  I'm way too wound up right now.  Why, might you ask?

So, all you lovely disciples who follow me on G+ might be aware of a big commission looming on the horizon; the client recently acquired a Skaven army and wanted me to paint it along with is two IK kitbashes.  It arrived yesterday, much to my surprise, after only about a week in transit.

So when I say "Skaven army", I may or may not mean a force big enough to take over Altdorf with.  Oh, that's right, the Old World is done away with now.

Right, let's have a swift look at what I've got to do, shall we?  I meant to take more photos, but didn't in the end.

12 heavy weapon teams; I don't know my Skaven too well, but they look like three jezzails, a ratling gun and a whole swag of warpstone spitty things.

54 old skool clanrats, at least a mix of clanrats and night runner bits.  That'll want tidying up.

An unassembled grey seer and a doomwheel; you know what, I ought to pick one up myself one day, the bits are all so COOL!

I think a grand total of 40 odd stormvermin, half of which being metal!

Some I recognise as night runners...

and three rat ogres (?), one needing a bit of back surgery.

Now, among the units I didn't photograph, there were three metal gutter runners, two metal standard bearers, a super-classic metal verminlord (this chap here)  a warp lightning cannon and a plagueclaw, Throne knows how many ordinary clanrats and a host of characters besides a million extra bits!

So that's that... Looks like my hands will be tied for some time, so if I don't post in a while, this will be the reason.  With any luck I'll get my squaduary pledge done shortly, and the loose ends of my previous commission tidied into the mail.  Between layers and washes I might be able to squash in a little something here and there, but right now there's a grey tide on my desk that needs some severe attention.

Bye bye for now.

Hobby update: yeah, still going...

Firstly, sorry for the sporadic posting.  It's all rather busy and hot down on this little island--Throne, but has it been hot!  Being New Zealand, the weather shouldn't be that much to complain about, but at the end of the day 30 is still 30 and paint still dries on the bristles and I've known no different.  I've been getting up earlier to get some commission work in before the heat drops.

Random pictures of six-thirty-in-the-morning traffic in my neighborhood...  Even the roadsigns are still asleep...

Right!  You're here for the update, not my complaining!  So, not much has changed since last time.  Here we are:

Firstly, my squaduary project looks a little more respectable, what with everyone basecoated and washed now.

 The statue of Konrad Curze, after getting some more sensible weapons swapped in, is nearing completion.

  The menagerie of spawn are getting painted by inches too.  Everyone's a different colour, how charming.  I'm still scratching my head over what colours exactly to use on the chap in the middle with dreadlocks...

Here's six out of the ten scenery effects I'm obliged to make at the failure of coming up with a sound idea for a "skinning pit"; I hope Jimmy will like them; these little dioramas are rather too much fun to plan out and put together!

The pool at Bethesda is getting there.  So much greenstuff...  intestines are particularily fun to sculpt, and I'm very glad for my experience in slaughtering.   I've pulled out enough guts to know how they deflate when punctured etc, and what a fresh skin looks like on the inside.

Throne, I'm talking about goats and sheep, sorry.

In other news, I'm putting together an Alpha Legion dark apostle to go with the biker lord and the cultists I put together not long ago AND FORGOT TO PHOTOGRAPH WHENFINISHED,TWETNYCULTISTSALLPAINTEDLOOKEDAMAZINGONTHEBENCH (Breathe in)  The client's given me the fullest range possible, requesting only that he be given a power maul, so yeah, world's my oyster once again.  I like my Alpha Legionnaires to be cloaked and hooded.

Let's dance, traitors!

And on a less serious note, a fellow G+ 40K/Bayonetta enthusiast mentioned something about making an Inquisitor based on our favorite Umbran witch.  how could I turn that idea down, busy as I am?
She'll be getting ammo feeds from her boots to hoppers either side of the jump pack.  Magick or not, if there's one thing I dislike about Platinum-- it's their cosmo guns!

So that's that, for the time being.  More paint got slapped around and I began more projects, fool that I am.  Again, sorry for the sporadic posting.

Bye bye for now.

painting continues outside the realm of 40K...

Hobby update: speeders, spawn and Squaduary

Hee hee, I knew my rate of starting new projects would come back and bite me one day.  Even though I've only got three imperative ones going at the moment, they're all quite work-intensive and I've regrettably found less hobby time as Summer draws to its abrupt close.

To begin with, my Squaduary pledge.  Oh, the shame!  I reckon I'm the only one behind in my work-- and I've only got FOUR chaps to do!  It's great to see everyone else's, though.
The fellow I was going to make a company champion has sort of turned into a musician, and the company banner might be the last thing painted, but we're getting there.  By inches.

As for Jimmy's commission, that's creeping along too.  Here's the first of the five chaos spawn; the encroaching darkness and the ghost of the Night Lord. 

And the other three; the headless centaur, the assassin, and the possessed cultist.  I reckon the centaur is closest to completion, and I'm very happy with how he's looking so far.  That shield won't amount to anything rule-wise, but it looks good.
For the possessed chap, I was initially thinking of just having one single daemon hanging out the top, but that would have looked silly.

I opted for the three/four ghouls instead, much more satisfactory.  A swirling vortex of madness as opposed to one solid-looking fellow with what would have looked like silly little legs...

 Ah, and this is a rather mad idea I had for a terrain piece.  Those who are familiar with your Apocrypha Terra will know the story in John 5 of the pool at Bethesda, where the angel descended once in a while to stir the waters and the first ailing mortal to touch the pool afterwards was healed.

 Now imagine that story, produced by Burg, Koules and Hoffman.  With a Night Lord as the angel and a slaughterhouse as the setting.

...Moving on to brighter things, I'm also fiddling around with my first landspeeder.  Not sure if I've already posted about it yet, but here we are.  It's not on the imperative list, but it's being seen to every once in a while.

 You can hardly see the driver's legs, but I wanted to change them anyway-- 'cause I could.

 

 As interesting as the weapon options were, I'm going with plain old missiles and a heavy bolter.  This is my only fast attack, and I don't really want it constantly having to jink with all the fire it'd draw.  Anyway, I like bolt weapons, 'specially as being VIIIth sons, they've all got Bolter drill!

 He'll be reaching down to clock some poor sod in the chin as he goes by.

I made the mistake of deciding to have the engine housing made out of hurricane mesh, so I'm now having to come up with a way of making the engines interesting!

So here's where I'm up to at the moment, sorry for the rotten photos.  Copious amounts of barbed wire, some greenstuff hair and an Astartes with a bare chest.  Yup, definitely says "D Power" right there.

And that's that!  Maybe next time there'll be a bit of paint to speak of.  I certainly hope so.

Bye bye for now.

Swift ramble concerning March's releases

Everybody's been talking about the new plastic lords of war GW will be releasing in March, and while I took a much later boat I still feel the need to add my two cents.  As a kitbasher I looked at the kits and wondered, what could I do with them?  So using the almighty power of the prt scrn button-- I could have found better pictures elsewhere (BoLs, f'rinstance) but oh well!-- I've put together a swift ramble.  Here we go:

Here's a Grey Knight feat. Random Stone.  Forgive me, I'm not an expert on these chaps, but Captain Voldus is looking pretty spiffy.  The Aquila wings over his shoulders are particularly nice, but I can't help but weep at their sight...  Plus the snoopy cap under the baroque plate is so cool, as it's always been.
The book on his hip, Not sure if it's the Codicium Aeternum, but if it is, then there's something to worry about.  You know, to be in such times as to need the book on hand constantly...
So what could one do with captain Voldus?  Not much, I'm afraid, except maybe spruce up your GK force with some nice bits.  His sculpt is very grounded, very compact and stable, making the process of cutting joints a big deal.


 Next up is Cypher, and THRONE if this new look isn't amazing!  I'm going to try and put the two models side-by-side for a good look, let's see if I can't mess this up...

 He comes with a slightly different loadout to what he had before.  They've brought him up to date nicely, and I love how more knight-of-caliban his armour looks, especially that shoulder.  The weapon he's holding looks a bit like an admech arc weapon... I think?  Whatever it is, I must have it, even if I won't be able to use it anywhere else.

Once again, as far as bits go, I don't think Cypher would be too terribly useful.  A few things would be: if that really is the Lion Sword (please tell me it isn't) we now have an official (if slightly inaccurate) rendition for kitbashes of the 1st legion's Primarch-- though if the rumors are to be believed, we won't need to be making any more of Him...  With a bit of fiddling, he should fit quite well into any 30K player's 1st Legion force.

It might sound a bit silly, but if I get hold of Cypher, I think I'm going to give him a hat instead of a hood.

...Moving on, then!  Robute Guilliman has evidently returned!  I still remember reading about him for the first time in my lovely old 6th ed codex (had a distinct scent, it did) and I genuinely marvelled at the miracle of his state of coma.  I wondered,would he ever wake up?  Would he break stasis and rise up to lead his legion again?  Clearly, the horrors of the 41st millennium are few compared to what we're going to see in the coming months.

Okay, straight away I'm seeing that Mk 8 Errant now comes in XL.  First thing is-- how amazing that he carries his father's weapon into battle!  Second thing is-- that sword's a bit big.  This isn't Fromsoftware, and I thought the Emperor was slightly shorter than a Primarch?

I take back what I just said...

He's got a severely IK-ish thing going on with his heraldry.  It's all a bit generic, if you understand?  Which of course is fine in the kitbashing sense!  Hee hee, and the little wings are so cute.

Still don't quite get what's going on with that bolter of his, though.  It's not one of the Gauntlets of Ultramar, but perhaps an S5 Assault 3 version?  An infernus heavy bolter, looking at the little spout at the end?
 I did a bit of bare-bones research into the Gauntlets; the wiki article says they were taken back from a chaos champion by Guilliman and that he used them on occasion.  The fact that he isn't sculpted with them probably means good old Calgar is meant to still be alive, good on him.

I'm so awfully sorry to say this, but I don't really like Him as much as I could.  I feel horrid for saying this, don't get me wrong, but His plate is all a bit generic and too body-shaped.  It's not as bulky, armour-looking and satisfyingly weighty as the FW Guilliman wears-- the sculpt of which isn't all that old, so I can't blame modern-day sculptors for bad changes in style.

(You know, I wasn't terribly fond of FW's Guilliman either, to begin with, for the same complaint.  I also didn't like Silent Hill 4: the Room when it was new...)

So what could we do with our XIIIth primarch?  Make more Primarchs, of course.  That must be the reason behind his heraldry being so vanilla-- have GW produced a stock Primarch for one to make one's own god of war from?
I reckon Robby G is close to the same height as a kastelian, so bit-swapping is in order there; the dreadknights have a decent set of melee weapons, and the front end off the stormtalon's heavy bolter and the body of a Centurion's will make for a nice Primarch-sized boltgun... GODS I'm looking forward to this!

And that's that, for now.  Will I be picking any of them up when they are released?  I'd be a fool not to, wouldn't I?  Fingers crossed for future releases, and please don't tell me Horus is returning.  Bye bye for now.

Hobby update: SOOOO many commissions!

 I don't know what to say, really!  When I started up my little kitbashing business, I never expected to get so much work!  Thank you, everyone!  I think I've mentioned in the past, between real life and painting 20 cultists and making a primarch (statue), my only regret is that I have so little time for my own Sagodjur Fjorlag-- but the work I've traded it for is quite worth it.

So far, looking at my ledger, I've completed 5 jobs, I'm working on two and am expecting another two sent to me!  So while the Dream Seekers aren't seeing much work done, my fingers are not idle.

Here, let me show you a moment a bit of what's on the alter right now:

Two members of a potential 8-man inq28 warband; an acolyte and an arbitrator.  Judge Dredd here is my first attempt at a greenstuff face, and I'm not loathful of it.  Yet.
Sadly, the client had to postpone the project when money was needed elsewhere-- but d'you know hwat that means?  I can fiddle with bits all the more and come up with something really nice.

He also wanted a Lone Wolf in the warband-- being inq28, it was only right he'd have to be TS.  He's using most of Griegor from Prospero (the nicest of his pieces, I felt), but I'm still going to have to try and pick up a few Wolf Guard shoulders and things later on.

If you haven't heard Månegarm before, you should.

Here's the primarch statue I alluded to before.  Looking a bit rough at the moment, hopefully it'll clean up nice with a bit more sculpting.

I'll let you guess what scene is portrayed.
This client-- G+ acquaintance Jimmy (hallo you!)-- also asked for five Chaos spawn, something I wasn't too sure about.  From what I've seen, the spawn don't seem to be much more than muscles on legs with sharp bits, mindless and wandering-- and while that might sound solid to you, I find it... generic.  Something you'd summon 20 of in a beast deck; expected.  That's a word.
These spawn are to be run alongside a Night Lords Force (I believe/hope?), so it wouldn't matter if they looked a bit abstract, would it?

Jimmy seemed pleased enough with the concept, so I've begun on them right away... Not much to show right now, but I'm working on it.  Slowly.

A third part of this commission was a set of skinning pits for terrain.  Two or three holes in the ground full of corpses and flayed skin and other suitable 8th legion effects... I'm still looking for a failsafe method to make the pits, without having to buy 3rd party or shell out unnecessarily inflated prices for now-OoP quake cannon craters.  I might have to compensate by apologising and turning this whole box of zombies into decorative pieces...

Or, if he likes, I could instead use the remains of my crashed Aquila lander set to make some nice terrain.
So that's that, for now.  Busy busy busy!  I just hope I've got time for my Squaduary pledge.

Bye bye for now.